Thursday, October 30, 2008

West Virginia Results

John McCain 55Barack Obama 42

John McCain appears headed for an easy victory in West Virginia. Since PPP polled the state two weeks ago his standing has improved by five points while Obama has remained in place. It appears this is one state where undecideds are moving overwhelmingly toward McCain.

Obama was never going to have a very good chance of winning the state if he couldn't improve his standing with Democratic voters, and in this survey he leads only 65-31 with them. McCain is receiving 90% support from his party, and also leading 53-39 with independent voters.

Obama is doing comparatively well with young voters, among whom he has a one point lead. But he is doing particularly poorly with the middle aged segment of the electorate. He is down 59-37 with voters between the ages of 30 and 45, a performance that does not bode particularly well for future Democratic Presidential prospects in the state.

16 comments:

All those 30-45 year olds think they're going to be millionaires someday, that's why they're Republicans. When they get older and realize that they're still stuck at the Honeywell factory, they might go back to voting Democratic. This trend seems pretty universal across all states - older voters are more Democratic (except in some Southern and Western states), along with younger voters, while voters in the 35-50ish range are typically Republican. I wonder if that is the case for elections through the last hundred years or so, or if it is some sort of residual effect of the Reagan Revolution, and that band of reliable Republican voters will get progressively older.

Mac supporter here, I'm wondering if Ohio is now closer for McCain according to your polls given the WV advantage; Nate Silver has speculated in the past that Obama's performance in Kentucky and West Virginia could tell us how large a margin McCain is running up against Obama in Southern Ohio. Mac appears to be performing close to the level that Bush did against Kerry in WV, so I'm curious if the Ohio race has tighetened.

Obviously, Obama doesn't need Ohio to win the general election but I'd still like Mac to avoid getting completely embarrassed on election night. A win seems as likely as the Devil Rays making it to the World Series at the beginning of this season, but if Mac could at least obtain the satisfaction of keeping Obama away from 300 electoral college votes, I'd take it.

Really, Mac seems to be hoping just for a New Hampshire miracle in PA when everyone who told a pollster that they'd vote for Obama the day before changed their minds. Perhaps the final speeches after Monday Night Football could make some difference. Any speculation where Obama and Mac will be delivering their final speeches (predictions: Obama in Atlanta to pay homage to King Jr., Mac will be at the Naval Academy or Air Force or some military establishment).

The pre-recorded MNF interviews won't even make a dent. Really pointless for both candidates actually, but hey free media is free media.

Furthermore, I don't think that WV is a very good indicator of Ohio. It may have been in a "Kerryesque" campaign where the Dems focused only on their core areas to drive up turnout and ceded the rest to the GOP. This year appears to be different - Ohio is one of the best organized states for the Obama campaign, and that's saying a lot.

I'm guessing it's the Reagan Revolution effect. Speaking as one of those voters who was a newborn when he was in office (I'm 23 and will be casting my first ever ballot for President this year), I think the reason we are so overwhelmingly Democratic is because we came of age in the Bush years.

We've seen what a dismal failure this guy is, and we've never actually lived through a Republican president that people actually *liked*, which apparently Reagan was.

But then again we also had one of those generational culture shifts toward more liberal values than our parents. We tolerate gays, we have a post-racial attitude, we are less religious on the whole and generally less interested in preserving "traditional values".

Unless the Republican ideology shifts to meet our new viewpoints, we're not going to shift over in droves.

WV isn't much of an indicator of Ohio. Yes, WV voters may line up with a certain part of southern Ohio voters, but that part of the area is sparsely populated, maybe 4-5% of Ohio voters. So if those voters line up with WV numbers, then it doesn't make much of a difference if they split their votes 51-47 or 55-44. Maybe 1% in the total overall vote. The area that will probably decide Ohio is the Youngstown, Akron, Canton region. Kind of like Ohio's Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. If that region goes heavy for Obama, then I think he wins. Oh, and Cleveland needs to come out big for Obama.

not to dispute your poll but Dems make up 58% of those who have voted early in WVA so even using PPPs cross tabs Obama is presently ahead of McCain in WVA. Of course if Reps show up in larger numbers on election day than they are during early voting then this theory does not hold

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